Brazil's Natura bought Body Shop and Avon to go global, then unwound the empire

Natura was founded in São Paulo in 1969 by Antônio Luiz Seabra and grew into Brazil's beauty champion through direct sales. It tested international waters early — distribution in Chile in 1982, first direct operations in Argentina and Peru in 1994, a São Paulo IPO in 2004, a first Paris store in 2005 — but the world beyond Latin America stayed out of reach.

In June 2017 Natura agreed to buy The Body Shop from L'Oréal for about €1B ($1.1B): 66 countries and 3,000-plus stores, and a 'decisive step towards internationalisation'. In January 2020 it closed the far bigger Avon deal, about $3.7B, creating the world's fourth-largest pure beauty group with more than $10B in combined annual gross revenue, 6.3 million direct-sales consultants and operations in over 100 countries.

The global empire then unwound with unusual speed: in 2023 Natura sold The Body Shop to Aurelius for £207M — about a fifth of the 2017 price — and Aesop to L'Oréal for $2.52B; in September 2025 it sold Avon International for £1, capitalising the unit's debt. The Latin-American direct-sales core it never lost remained the profitable centre of gravity.

For a moment the world's fourth-largest pure beauty group ($10B+ revenue); then it sold Body Shop for £207M (2023) and Avon International for £1 (2025)

Buying global distribution instead of building it works when the sellers do not value the assets: L'Oréal never loved Body Shop's ethics-first brand, while Natura did.

Two acquisitions in three years overstretched the machine: integrating an ethics brand and a door-to-door empire at once left Brazil's cash engine funding two turnarounds simultaneously.

The exits were disciplined by the same logic as the buys: when integration proves wrong, sell at whatever the market pays — a fifth of the price beats a permanent drag.

Buying a foreign brand is renting its distribution — it works when you can feed it; when the core cannot fund two turnarounds at once, selling at a loss beats subsidising drift

After the divestments Natura kept its Latin-American direct-sales core and in 2025 consolidated its holding structure back into Natura Cosmetics. The episode reads as a full cycle: regional champion, would-be global empire, regional champion again.